Òran Mór,Glasgow
Three stars
Everything is up in the air for Liam, the twenty-something stoner in Kevin P. Gilday’s new play, this week’s lunchtime offering at A Play, a Pie and a Pint. Liam is the sole surviving resident of a condemned inner city high-rise about to be demolished, with or without his presence.
Only when social worker Joanne turns up at Liam’s door does he realise he’s been made the figurehead of a protest against the demolition he wasn’t aware of being a part. All he wants is to stay in a room where the presence of his lost mum still lingers in the plants and the black and white films he watches.
As Joanne attempts to ensure Liam won’t throw himself out of his flat window, she reveals ghosts of her own that she is attempting to lay to rest. From Liam’s initial suspicion of Joanne, the pair form a bond that occasionally misfires before the plug is finally pulled on what Liam used to call home.
Gilday’s play takes a look at how a toxic mix of everyday isolation, grief and high anxiety can leave those already vulnerable in need of some kind of way out. What that solution is depends on which way Liam and Joanne jump in Shilpa T-Hyland’s production, which pitches Paul Gorman’s Liam and Elaine Stirrat’s Joanne up against each other as they attempt to hold on to dear life itself in an emotionally charged affair.
And when the walls come tumbling down, the bricks and mortar may be gone, but the presence of those no longer with them is carried on within in a lively look at the need for human connection in a world where sometime you just want to hide away.
The Herald, November 13th 2025
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